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While Tunisia’s P.M. has named the two suspected gunmen killed in the Bardo Museum attack, any possible terror group link remains unknown.
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A Tunisian woman holds a placard reading in French “Tunisia will remain standing” as she takes part in a rally March 18, 2015, a few hours after an attack on the National Bardo Museum.(Photo: Sofiene Hamadaoui, AFP/Getty Images)

Angry Tunisians rallied in solidarity Thursday outside the museum where two gunmen had killed 21 people after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bloody attack.

Most of the dead were foreign tourists, 17 of them from cruise ships. Five major ship companies said Thursday they were canceling future arrivals scheduled for Tunisia.

Twelve of the dead were passengers on the MSC Splendida and five from the Costa Fascinosa. They were visiting the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, birthplace of the Arab Spring democracy movement, when the gunmen stormed it Wednesday. The two gunmen were killed by police.

Thursday, police announced the arrest of nine people. Five of them were described as being directly tied to the two gunmen. The other four were accused of having ties to the terrorist cell involved.

Culture Minister Latifa Lakhdar spoke defiantly at the museum, where Roman-era mosaics are on display and where about 500 people held a moment of silence before singing Tunisia’s national anthem. Marchers carried signs saying, “No to terrorism,” and “Tunisia is bloodied but still standing.”

“They are targeting knowledge. They are targeting science. They are targeting reason. They are targeting history. They are targeting memory, because all these things mean nothing in their eyes,” Lakhdar said of the attackers.

The Islamic State released an online recording claiming responsibility for the shooting rampage. The recording praised the “knights of the Islamic State” for the attack and called the museum a “den of infidels and vice.”

The slain gunmen were identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui, both Tunisians. Prime Minister Habib Essid said Laabidi had been flagged by intelligence authorities, although not for “anything special.”

More than 3,000 Tunisians have joined Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, the Tunisian government estimates. Training camps in neighboring Libya provide easy access to the fight for Tunisian Muslims discontent with the fledgling democracy in Tunis.

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Gunmen opened fire Wednesday at a museum in Tunisia’s capital, killing at least eight people, including seven foreign tourists and wounding six. A later raid by security forces left two gunmen and one officer dead but ended the standoff. (March 18)AP

The National Bardo Museum draws art lovers and tourists from around the world. Two cruise ships whose passengers were among the victims sailed out of the port of Tunis early Thursday.

Japanese tourist Noriko Yuki, 35, said she was on the second floor of the museum when a gunman dressed in black opened fire from a doorway. Yuki, Speaking to NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, over the phone from a hospital in Tunisia, also heard an explosion, she said.

The broadcaster reported that Yuki, who suffered wounds to her back and hands, said her 68-year-old mother was also injured and underwent surgery at a Tunisian hospital.

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, who is visiting Tokyo to promote the education of girls in developing countries, said she and President Obama wanted to “express our condolences over the horrific event yesterday in Tunisia.”

Tunisia, the northernmost African nation, has struggled with militants since a revolution ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Since then, there have been assassinations of liberal, secular politicians and attacks on tourist haunts.